[ eschewed no longer. ]

A small, puppy-sized dragon is flying casually through the skies when a set of golden chains abruptly fly out and seize it in place. Moments later, Aurelius emerges from the darkness so common to the Black Fens, examining his captive with a puzzled air.

"Are they...usually this small?"

"...maybe I haven't been paying attention to the instructions."

A dragon of this size could hardly terrorize any livestock. Perhaps it was actually a baby. If that was the case, where was its mother?

With how vastly different the various areas of the island are, it's a hope that, he thinks, has at least a bit of footing. The more he sees of the island and al its disparate areas, the more he's convinced of it. Environs so wildly distinct from one another and yet still being so impossibly close must be some sort of clue.

And when he'd heard tell of dragons on the island-- well. There's comfort to be found in the familiar, even if these dragons might not be the same as the ones back home, either.

Problem being, neither he nor his partner have still gotten entirely used to their new size problem.

Ratha's screech fills the air, jerking Leo's head up from where he'd been sketching some field notes, loud and distressed, and ice floods through the prince's veins.

"Ratha!"

Any danger Leo might be putting himself in is easily thrown to the wayside, without a care in the world for any sort of stealth as he crashes through the forest around him in the direction of the sounds. A moment later and he's barreling through the tree line into a small clearing, Ratha continuing to thrash and snarl and screech, but with little more than flailing and talons and dark clouds of smoke pouring out of his mouth to show for it.

That's a word he doesn't actually know so whatever. Guess it really is somethin like a dragon then? Beats him.

" It just means what I said. That or I've lost my mind and am hallucinating it all. Take your pick I guess. "

All this fantastic and supernatural it was sort of like drinking - It was fun until it wasn't. There was nothing he could do about it anyhow so he had to pretend like this was supposed oh so very normal just so that he didn't completely lose his mind.

" You've been bought into some kind of place very, very far away from home. "

The worry that had been bubbling beneath the surface, each new piece of information compounding. He had already been far from home by crossing the Meridian-- and now, impossibly, he found himself further, with no Rangers nor network of knowledge and information at his disposal.

With the Encroachment worsening. With war at the nation's door. With his friends across the Meridian, his team without their captain, with Ratha currently entirely incapable of even starting to get them back where they belong.

"Housing," Leo says, audibly swallowing a panic he hadn't known he'd been capable of.

"Right. Yes. I suppose there's that." He'd poked his nose in briefly, having been escorted there, but he'd done little more than keep a running mental note of how to return, seeing as he's been relegated to travel on foot. There had been far more pressing questions that needed answering-- and now, for better or worse, he has at least some of them. Granted, they come along with the steadily increasing heartbeat in his chest.

"YES! Hey, please sit with me! I'll share my plate with you!" And she, too, has her plate filled to the brim! Someone so small...someone so small could eat like 10 men on a boat!

She pats an empty seat beside her for him to sit.

"Here!" Quickly, she's stabbing an apple with a stick and passing it to him. "Maybe your little friend will like it, too." Did they eat fruits?

"I'm Hanabi, by the way. What are your names?"

"Oh," he blinks. "Thank you."

Honestly feeling a bit bowled over with the sudden hospitality, Leo's left feeling a little bit out of his element. Usually there's always some sort of string attached when not with the Rangers, some expectation of him or some royal caveat to the niceties.

"I'm Leo," he says as he takes the skewer, and it's both strange and refreshing to not have someone immediately greet him with 'highness'. "And this is Ratha." The tiny wyvern peers around as he, too, is lowered while Leo sits, getting a closer view of others around the table and clearly just as curious as his partner.

Leo takes his own bite and his eyebrows raise-- it tastes unlike fruit from back home, where here he'd gone and thought they'd be well enough alike. "Oh, you weren't kidding!"

Unthinkingly, the remaining half of the slice up to his partner-- only for him to snort loudly in distaste.

"Hey, don't be rude," he chides, before popping the rest of the treat into his mouth. Really, though, it does make sense that he wouldn't have an interest, considering the sharpness of each little tooth in his mouth.

No, the worst truly was how badly the pixies wanted entertainment from him. Claus had begun to learn what they liked, what they found fascinating, and what they found to be a horrible drag. 

Today was the latter most option. 

Claus had wanted to test the limits of his PSI. It’d been interesting to him, a small collection of items he’d found about the forest to see just what he could or couldn’t lift with his psychokinesis and for how long. At first the pixies had found his struggles to be worth their while. His exasperation over his own shortcomings seemed to be hilarious to them if their laughter when he’d kicked the branch he’d been unable to lift meant anything. 

Straying back into familiar territory had been where their patience ended. 

The lack of excitement or reaction must have been boring, because the little group began to make sounds Claus could only compare to booing. 

At first he’d tried to ignore them, but as they grew louder and louder, refusing to leave and instead patronize him, his own patience began to waver. He wasn’t here to be their play thing or clown, he was here to train safely away from everyone so no one would get hurt! Couldn’t they understand that!? Couldn’t they leave him alone after the countless times he’d asked them!? 

Enough had been enough. And with a grit to his teeth Claus chucked the pinecone he’d been levitating as hard and fast as his mind would allow. 

“THERE! Is that what you wanted!?” 

He barked at the group, a few small gasps escaping them. For the briefest millisecond, Claus almost felt proud of himself. Shortly before it all came crashing down at the sound of an animal’s screech and a distressed voice. 

Claus’s heart dropped. 

“Oh no-“ 

Forgetting the audience he darted in the direction he’d launched the pinecone, panic already bubbling up inside his chest. Shoot shoot shoot shoot- What was someone doing out here at this hour!? Had he hit an animal? A person? Both? 

It didn’t take long for him to find the source of the cry. At least, he assumed it to be the source. A boy was standing there and was the first person he’d found in this direction. If anyone had gotten hit…

“A-Are you alright!?” 

Any and all formalities were forgotten in the face of the burning concern he held for the one he’d now stumbled across. 

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t- I didn’t think-“ 

He took a step forward, about to try and get a closer look when he finally took notice of the creature flying near the unknown boy. Mismatched eyes went widened a bit at the sight of the creature. 

So the distress as the tiny wyvern stops mid-air, flapping hard to catch himself, feels more than warranted. As does his quick about-face as soon as he gets his bearings back about him, flying quickly back to perch on Leo's shoulder, where he's found himself more often than not since the two of them work up here.

Two fingers come up to scritch under the wyvern's chin as he settles, wings ruffling a bit next to Leo's ear and tail wrapping around the back of his neck, the end twitching along his collarbone. It's at the same time that the sound of hurried footsteps reaches his ears.

"Oh!"

"He's fine- no injures or anything, just a little flustered. Don't worry." As if in protest, Ratha spits a tiny plume of black smoke as he grumbles-- any of the fire that had once been at his disposal had also seemed to be out of reach since being shrunk.

Somewhere off in the distance, a faint 'tut-tutting' can be heard from up above, as though to scold further than Leo had been. Eyebrows furrow as he glances upwards before bringing his attention back down to the boy in front of him.

Yesol glances the small lizardthing, making an unimpressed face when it responds with a growl. He even smirks a little, in mockery, although quickly wipes it off his face when the man faces him again.

" Sorry to burst your bubble but I've got no clue what's a scrivener since I'm assuming you're not writing a novel or whatever? "

" You're not in your world now so better get used to not finding things that are familiar to you and fast. "

Well, not him though. As long as he didn't venture in stupidly desolate areas or places like forests or whatever he ought to be fine.

At least he's getting useful-- if not worrisome-- information out of the guy. The vast differences already felt near impossible to grasp at times, no matter how limited the amount of it grasp at times, no matter how limited the amount of it he'd seen was. If this man had truly never heard of Scriveners before- nor, from the sound of things, had he even heard of what a Rathalos was- then the true scope of how far from home they were was far bigger than he had even initially thought.

"He's a wyvern," Leo corrects as evenly as possible, a voice he's used in many a meeting. "Perhaps historians, then? Or those who study flora and fauna?"

Crossing the Meridian had nearly been traveling to another world- but even that had still been (so far) rooted in the rules of nature that he had largely been able to understand, save for the differences in wildlife.

And he had succeeded! At least... for a while. But after several hours of picking his way through thick vegetation and sketching and note taking, the delicious smell he'd been able to successfully resist may as well have been a siren song to his growling stomach. To be fair, Ratha really didn't seem to have any complaints, either. And he'd even gotten a more diverse plate this time-- it wasn't entirely just meat!

"Oh!"

"Waaaaa!!! So GOOD!" Hanabi was starving. She had been having so much fun that in turn, she forgot to feed herself. That, and she may have been waiting to go to the City of Glass when she heard about the delicious food they were great at! The fruits, the meat, it was all too delicious.

That is, at least, until the wafting scent of grilled meats had hit his nose, almost as far away from the concealed city as the dock they'd made port in. Stomach and watering mouth had almost instantaneously taken over the role of tour guide from the mind that had been so drawn to discovery, so fast it was almost comical.

He's got his mouth absolutely stuffed, is the thing, cheeks puffed full and all, when a girl suddenly starts talking to him. It's the sort of thing he would definitely get scolded for in the castle, even though he's more than a little spoiled to getting away with it with the Rangers.

Leo quickly sets about to chewing the rest of what he's got stuffed away in his cheek, thumping his chest with his free hand as he does so, the other still balancing a plate piled high.

"N-no, actually," he finally gets out with a small cough. An impatient Ratha aggravatedly grumbles from his perch on Leo's shoulder, and almost automatically the prince is holding up another hunk of meat for the tiny wyvern to take his turn digging his teeth into it.

"I, um-" he starts, actually sounding a bit bashful.

"Well. Kinda' loaded my whole plate with all the different kinds of meat, y'see." Something that even the other Rangers might possibly scold him for. Not all of it was for him, though...!

" So I'm not a horse-guy so can't say for sure but I haven't seen even normal stables around. Let alone some dinosaur-size kind of a set up... "

Ratha takes precedence though-- and the miniaturized wyvern letting out a displeased growl from his perch at the comment is quick to re-grab Leo's attention from his mind's wandering.

"Ah-- well--"

"He's not usually like this, y'see." A hand comes up to stroke placatingly along the top of his spiky head, the smooth scales of his neck. "He's a full grown Rathalos- er. Was. I'm not really sure what's wrong with him."

Welcome to blistering Isola Radiale, Leo!

You’ll be staying in HOUSE 106!

You will be given a wooden knife.